Hindu Political Theology: Beyond Hindutva’s Political Monotheism

Somayajula reads Hindutva as political theology, showing how Hindu nationalism flattens religious diversity and urging a more inclusive Hindu identity.

Pranay Somayajula
JCRT https://outcome.doctrineofdiscovery.org/jcrt/issue1/somayajula/

Canonical: https://jcrt.org/archives/24.2/somayajula/

Abstract

Somayajula reads Hindutva as political theology, showing how Hindu nationalism flattens religious diversity and urging a more inclusive Hindu identity.

This paper, presented in December 2023 at the “Religious Origins of White Supremacy: Johnson v. M’Intosh and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery” conference at Syracuse University, analyzes the rise of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, through the framework of ‘political theology’ that was developed in the early 20th century by the German jurist Carl Schmitt. In the essay, I explore the ways that Hindutva ideology invokes political–theological concepts to construct a unitary ‘Hindu’ identity that is conceived not only in religious terms, but in racial and civilizational terms as well. I draw upon Schmitt’s conception of political theology, as well as the work of scholars such as Anustup Basu who have characterized Hindutva as a form of ‘political monotheism’ due to its central project of flattening and homogenizing the incredibly diverse array of practices and traditions that fall under the ‘Hindu’ umbrella in service of an exclusionary, ethnic and cultural nationalist political project. In order to resist this ‘political monotheism,’ the essay argues for a return to an expansive understanding of what ‘Hindu’ means, and for the decoupling of “Hindu–ness” from nationhood in favor of a more syncretic and inclusive conception of Indian national identity.